THE Health Research Bureau (HRB) has reported
that in order to “facilitate public debate on the issues of
waste management policy and effects, a systematic programme of risk
communication will be necessary.

This should concentrate on providing unbiased
and trusted information to all participants (or stakeholders) in waste
management issues. Public trust, whether it is placed in the regulators
in compliance with the regulations or in the information provided,
will be fundamental in achieving even a modicum of consensus for any
future developments in waste”.

The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche,
has totally misrepresented what his own advisers, the HRB, have said
in an effort to support an unsafe and outmoded technology - incineration.

The report adds: “Ireland presently has
insufficient resources to carry out adequate risk assessments from
management facilities... and routine monitoring of the health of people
living near waste sites.”

The report deals with the health risks, respiratory
illnesses, kidney and liver damage and cancer from “management
facilities” and “waste sites” - ie, incinerators
and landfill, not backyard burning.

If we do so much backyard burning and all the
dioxins come from this - as Mr Roche has suggested - then surely we
should have the highest levels of toxins in Europe?

However, Ireland has the lowest dioxin levels,
while Denmark and Belgium have the highest in the northern hemisphere.
They also have a proliferation of incinerators.

If there is to be honest debate, it should be
about all the safer, cleaner technologies now in operation worldwide.
We need not blindly follow our European neighbours and make their
mistakes. Ireland has led the way with the smoking and plastic bags
ban.